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Bloomberg’s Washington footprint explodes

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has expanded his Washington footprint dramatically over the past two years, using his enormous clout and seasoned lobbying hands to push a nexus of issues that the White House and Congress are just beginning to address.

From guns to gay marriage to immigration to infrastructure — and most recently, in the battle for billions of federal dollars in Hurricane Sandy relief — Bloomberg’s presence in Washington has grown exponentially since 2011. And he has just retained three Republican lobbyists to press Congress on new gun control measures, POLITICO has learned, a big move considering GOP fear of the powerful National Rifle Association.

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Haberman discusses POLITICO Bloomberg interview

Armed with his powerful political perch and a massive personal fortune, Bloomberg has employed a repertoire of tactics — his own voice, the city’s lobbying office and lobbying shops hired by coalition groups he has helped create — to move the needle on his issues.

No one has ever tried what Bloomberg is doing now — but then again, there’s never been anyone like Bloomberg in elected office.

“It’s certainly not being bored, because I would argue we are doing more things in the city than we were before,” Bloomberg said in a lengthy POLITICO interview in his bullpen-style office at New York City Hall last week. Bloomberg’s work with his personal philanthropic foundation has helped keep him focused on his policy objectives, he said, but so has seeing results.

After toying with a presidential run in 2008, Bloomberg has instead turned his attention over the past three years to a range of national projects. Taking on gun violence was the first. “Vindicated,” Bloomberg said, is the wrong word to describe how he feels now that the White House has embraced the cause; Bloomberg simply said he’s glad President Barack Obama has seen the light.

Bloomberg and a web of groups with his imprint — including some he has donated to personally — have hired a veritable army of well-connected lobbyists. Sitting with POLITICO, Bloomberg described lobbying as helpful but not the be all and end all to achieving change in Washington.

“It’s a grass-roots push that got Obama to do something” on guns, Bloomberg said. “Or try the grass-roots push on gay marriage. It got some reporter to ask Joe Biden the right question at the right time when he was loquacious or whatever the word is.”

On gun control, the issue for which he has gained national attention, Bloomberg said: “You have to go and convince the average congressperson or senator that it is in their personal, reelection interest to not side with the NRA but to side with the other side.” The single most important gun control measure that’s needed, he said, is legislation requiring background checks.

Still, Bloomberg hasn’t left it all to the grass-roots.

His most high-profile endeavor — Mayors Against Illegal Guns — and the super PAC he created last year are likely to spend tens of millions of dollars over the next year. And MAIG is bringing on Republican lobbyists to help woo GOP lawmakers skittish about being at odds with the NRA.

They include Carl Thorsen of Thorsen French Advocacy, a former counsel to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas); Jamie Brown Hantman, president of the JBH Group and a former special assistant for legislative affairs to President George W. Bush; and Robert H. Marsh, of the OB-C Group, who also worked for Bush.